


Different Words for Love

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas' POV, Feels, Idiots, M/M, Season 8, Words, liferuiners, mildy sexual content, usual amount of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 14:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically:  Naomi's a bitch, Dean and Cas are idiots, feelings are complicated, but love conquers all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Words for Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speakmefair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/gifts).



> Because she's an Angel. ;)
> 
> Look: I'm popping my SPN cherry. Feels like a coming out party! I couldn't deal with my feels from the last episode (8.19) so I resorted to therapy writing.
> 
> Much gratitude to 3988Akasha for beta and being an excellent immoral compass.

They were just words, a torrential outpouring of them, but they were still merely verbiage. So why did Castiel feel as if each syllable was cutting into him like a thousand Angel blades?

“Dean...” he tried to interject.

“Don’t. Just don’t. How do you expect me to believe anything you say after the shit you’ve pulled?”

Castiel knew the power Naomi could hold over one’s mind, was intimately aware of exactly how deeply those claws could sink into the very core of your soul, but there was a part of him that hoped, that _believed_ she could not hold this power over Dean. Not his Dean.

“You know she helped us save Bobby’s soul from Crowley,” Dean barked out and finally turned his back towards him, as if that somehow hammered the final nail into the coffin of this discussion.

“I am sorry I could not be there myself to help you, Dean.” Castiel hung his head and slowly clenched and unclenched his fists.

“Whatever,” Dean mumbled, with his back still turned.

“Dean, you have to believe me. You have to trust me. If you don’t trust me... I... this...” Castiel didn’t really know how to continue. There was something scratching at the very surface of his brain, he might even have said his heart had he actually believed deep down that he had one. “Everything we’ve been through together... Surely it means more to you than the few seconds in Naomi’s presence?”

“Oh yeah,” that made Dean turn towards him, a familiar expression of barely fettered sarcasm on the hunter’s face. “Right, like the time, no, the _times_ you left me in Purgatory? Or the time you nearly beat me to death? Or _every single time_ you fuck off!”

Castiel flinched again, feeling as if Dean was flaying his very Grace with every word.

“Fine,” he said, allowing the Angel blade to descend from his sleeve. It was Dean’s turn to flinch - the involuntary movement sending another stab of pain and regret into Castiel’s chest. “If you really believe that, if you truly do not trust me, then take this and end it.” He held out the Angel blade towards the stunned hunter.

“Whu... what are you doing?” Dean backed up until he finally hit the wall behind him.

Castiel grit his teeth. “ _Take it_ ,” he repeated, shoving the instrument of his own death into Dean’s sweaty palm. “And end it.” He pulled on Dean’s arm, positioning the blade squarely against his chest, right underneath his vessel’s sternum. Dean’s eyes traveled towards the blade, then back up to meet Castiel’s eyes. He blinked slowly, almost as if he was trying to wake himself from their current predicament, and Castiel swallowed as he watched the fluttering of those eyelids, so fragile and almost translucent. Dean’s hand trembled but he gripped the blade tightly. “I would never hurt you if I could help it, Dean. I would never leave you if I could help it. But none of it matters if you don’t believe me.”

“Cas...”

Dean unclenched his hand and the Angel blade fell to the floor with loud thud. Suddenly, Dean’s arms were around him, and Castiel felt himself being pulled into that powerful hug that had stunned him so much in Purgatory that he had not known how to respond at the time. This time, he raised his arms and, in turn, wrapped them around Dean’s warm, familiar form. He felt Dean exhale, and for a brief moment he almost felt at peace.

“I’m sorry for hurting you, Dean,” Castiel whispered into the hunter’s shoulder. “Tell me what I can do to make it up to you.”

Dean pulled away, assuming his usual posture of casual swagger. He lifted his index finger to point at Castiel, which boded of further chastisement and the Angel readied himself for another one of Dean Winchester’s stern lectures on How Not To Be.

“You...” Dean started, a tad uncertainly, punctuating the air with his finger, “You don’t leave! You don’t go zapping off to Hell knows where!”

It occurred to Castiel that perhaps he was no more than a dog whose master was telling him to “Stay! Good Angel of the Lord.” He shook his head, trying to force that thought away.

“I did not think you found my presence to be so... _necessary_ ,” Castiel finally managed.

“You what?” Dean was beginning to look truly outraged. “You didn’t think.... Cas, are you _actually_ still insane? Other than Sammy, you’re the only one I’ve got in this world! The only one I give a shit about!”

It was starting to hurt again, that thing inside his chest where his heart wasn’t. Castiel did not understand. It felt a little bit like his vessel wanted to throw up.

“Dean, you’re the _only_ one I have in the world,” he finally replied and lifted his eyes towards Dean’s again. “You’re the most important thing,” he repeated, more to himself than to anyone else. He could sense the little intake of breath from Dean, observed his posture shift, even perceived that the hunter’s temperature climbed by a fraction of a degree. “Please, I... I don’t want Naomi to take you from me again.” He watched Dean swallow, observing the movement of his throat as he often caught himself doing, then lick his lips.

“So, you’ll stay then?”

“Yes,” Castiel replied, the word barely a whisper upon his lips.

Only he couldn’t stay. Not exactly. The _pain_ inside him, it was too much, it was threatening to tear him apart and he couldn’t understand it. It was as if something was just there, just out of reach, and if only he could figure out what it was, he could grasp it and it would make him whole again. And with a flutter of his wings, he was gone, hearing the exclamation that followed only inside his mind, “Cas! God _dammit_!”

He crash landed onto his knees in his corner of Heaven, the autistic man’s eternal Tuesday afternoon, the green of the grass seeming almost as green as Dean’s eyes, and he screamed. It was illogical, it didn’t compute. The thing inside him was about to tear his rib cage apart. Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t palpable, but right there, under the surface, some hellish itch he couldn’t scratch. And so he started to cry, actually cry, human tears. It would have been embarrassing had anyone been there to observe him.

He knew he had to go back immediately. He suspected that Dean might try to punch him in the face again if he apparated in the middle of that room after this latest departure. It wouldn’t physically hurt him, after all, but it showed that Dean cared, and Castiel felt the shadow of a smile creeping up on his features. It was better than indifference, this anger, wasn’t it? Perhaps it would make the _pain_ go away. Distract him even. He quickly wiped the incomprehensible tears from his eyes and descended back to Earth.

“Dean.”

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Dean greeted him, veering towards with fists indeed clenched, just as Castiel had anticipated. 

“I presume you meant that figuratively.”

“Now you zap off literally in the middle of a conversation?” Dean still hadn’t hit him, and Castiel was beginning to wonder if he actually would. After all, Dean didn’t really even try to fight back that time... in the crypts. He didn’t want to remember that time.

“I’m sorry, Dean. Something came over me. And I... well... I didn’t really want you to see me like that.” 

The concern on Dean’s face was genuine and he put his hand on Castiel’s shoulder in that simple gesture of care and comradery that always touched Castiel in that same weird place where the _pain_ was currently located.

“Cas, seriously, man. You OK?”

“I apologize. I did not mean to worry you.”

“Come on, man. You know I worry. I worry all the time. I’m like a neurotic mother hen.” Dean smiled and Castiel mirrored that smile, the agony on the inside somewhat subsiding. Dean’s hand squeezed gently. “Just tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help.”

“You can’t help,” the words tore out of Castiel like a moan. “It hurts,” he started to speak, and it was as if his vessel’s mouth had suddenly sprung a leak because he could no longer control what he was saying. “It _hurts_ , Dean. All the time! And it hurts when I’m with you, but then I go away, and it hurts even more when I’m away from you. And it just doesn’t stop. And I want to go to you, to be by your side, but then I’m here, and it’s back and it _doesn’t go away_ , and so I have to leave again.” The look on Dean’s face was what finally made Castiel shut up. There was something there that almost bordered on... hope.

“You... you hurt more when you’re away from me?”

“Yeah.”

“And it hurts when you’re with me?”

Castiel nodded.

“And when you think about me?”

“Pain,” Castiel responded simply.

Dean smiled and ran his fingers through his own hair. “Cas... uh...” he cleared his throat. “Yeah, I gotta say, I’m kinda familiar with that feeling.”

“How do you make it _stop_?!” The desperation in Castiel’s voice was so raw that again he felt ashamed of not being able to control himself. Dean took a step closer, that same hopeful expression making his face appear almost luminous.

“Dude, it’s love.” Dean cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, it’s the only crap I know of that can hurt like that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dean,” Castiel snapped. “Love isn’t supposed to hurt.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes it does. Especially if you think that the person you love doesn’t love you back. But if I told you that I understood what you were feeling...?” Dean trailed off, taking another fraction of a step towards Castiel, as if he was approaching a terrified yet utterly wild tiger cub.

“Are you... Are you saying that I love you?”

“I don’t know, Cas. Maybe I’m saying that _I_ love _you_.”

“Love is predominantly a human emotion, so you would be able to identify it better than I can. _Do_ you think you love me, Dean?” Castiel tilted his head to the side giving Dean that familiarly inquisitive puppy look from the days of yore, and Dean’s face melted into a wide smile.

“I do.” Dean held his gaze for a moment, letting it sink in. “Now... Does that make the pain better?”

Castiel hung his head, his Grace felt all aflutter, all tied up, and the gnawing inside his gut was all wrong. It still felt as if something was clawing at the surface, screaming to be let out, even as comprehension was descending over him. _Dean loved him._

“I’m not sure. It still feels... strange,” he confessed.

“Well,” Dean was standing inches away from him, “There’s something else that we can try then.” Castiel looked up and his eyes flew wide because Dean was right there, personal space apparently be damned, and then Dean was turning his head and pressing his lips to Castiel’s.

Dean’s lips were warm and he tasted of whiskey and some kind of pastry and Castiel wanted to go on tasting his mouth for eons. He gasped and opened his lips, allowing Dean’s tongue to gently snake in. His hands flew up to card desperately through Dean’s short hair, his fingers rubbing gentle circles into the back of his neck, his head, pressing their bodies together in a primal and timeless dance. And suddenly, everything was making perfect sense.

“Dean,” Castiel pulled away from the kiss, his lips swollen, his vessel’s face flushed to the roots of his raven hair. “You were wrong. I don’t love you; I’m _in_ love with you. The Greeks even have a different word for it.”

“Dude, _fuck_ the Greeks,” Dean panted and crushed Castiel’s mouth with his own again. 

Castiel again presumed he meant that figuratively. Perhaps he could explain _Agápe_ and _Éros_ to Dean some other time. There would probably be time enough later for philosophical discussion of human emotion, and that time would be when he felt a less pressing desire to be immediately naked and rutting up against his hunter. At that moment, he felt closer to God than he had ever felt before, for did not God command the Angels to love humans more than they loved Him? And Castiel did.


End file.
